A Story

In Memorial of Chik-V, The Village Mascot

Chik-V arrived to The Village as a chick less than 4 inches high in June 2014. The proprietors of The Village adopted Chik-V as their mascot, after literally watching him grow up in The Village environs. Even after becoming a grown rooster, with other chickens visiting Chik-V never left The Village after his arrival, until recently.

Marcia Henry, the proprietor of Art of a Lioness, was the primary caretaker, (feeder,) of Chik-V. She started with bread or biscuit crumbs initially, and moved on to cracked corn, grated coconut, and surprisingly grapefruit pulps and mango.

Chik-V got his name, not simply because of the pun on the local diminutive used to refer to chikungunya, but because shortly after the time that many of us in Portland were struggling with the infection, he was seen limping around, too. Many of the proprietors joked about the young rooster having chik-v, too, before it came out that one of the small children had accidentally stepped on him. With the pun, and the incident, Chik-V's name was found.

Chik-V would spend a lot of time in The Art of a Lioness, presumably because Marcia was his primary feeder. She says he would preen himself in front of his reflections from some of her artwork. In addition Chik-V was known as sticking his head between two lithographs, (for reduced light?,) and taking a nap during the day.

I can say from experience that Chik-V was very gentle and social for a rooster. He was never threatening, and as you can see from the photos, I could often get quite close, before he'd move away.

Chik-V has been missing now for a little more than two weeks at the time of writing this blog. Their is definltey a real sadness amongst many of the proprietors about their mascot being missing. The worst is feared, too. It is speculated that someone stole Chik-V from the village for their personal use for a meal, or two. I am sorry that many of you never had the chance to meet Chik-V live. My photos do faint justice to how striking he was in his rooster beauty.